You must allow pain to visit. Let it teach. Then you must (never) let it go.

131

Dirty red down the wall in lines. Controlled. Running down deep into the carved crevices. Line by line. Mark by chipped broken mark.

"What is this?!"

At the voice, the prisoner in white creaked her head up. Just a bit. Then to the left.

Her neck creaked with each movement.

Behind the pop of bones, the messy shock white hair, cropped short, behind the peeling inflamed spots of skin was not in fact a crazed old woman.

Just a crazed young one.

If it was make up, if these were all just fun house props that you would wash and wipe away it really was a pretty young woman standing there by the wall. Eerily still. Like a ball-jointed mannequin.

If only it was make up. Made up. Painted on stitches and scars.

"Decorating." she rasped, voice sounding unused. A stitched up dead thing learning to breathe again, to speak, "you're not on schedule today."

"Am I not? You're keeping track of time quite well as of late Sophie. " stated the stout doctor by the doorway.

White. The whole room was a grey faded white. As if dust had gathered, settled and stained.

All except for the one wall.

"It's quite an improvement."

Of course, it was. She was drugged out of her god damn mind for most of her early days here. Sedated and bundled. So she wouldn't hurt herself. What an improvement.

"You're not ...on schedule today," the one called Sophie repeats.

Gravel on skin, a dry throat, more than a little fucked up. Is it any surprise that her insides were even more destroyed than her outsides? Scar tissue can't feel. Scar tissues scabbed and filled in every one of her cracks over the last 8 years. They wrapped and twisted around her skin like vines, the seeds, and roots scratched deep in her organs. Her womb.

How funny. So she's alive after all? What a horror.

"That's not what your medication is for."

The red. Syrup and powers, mixed unfortunately up to a sticky paint. But that wasn't enough to achieve that shade, that velocity.

"I'm sick doc."

"And that's why you need to continue taking it.

"Sick of it. Sick of this."

131 days.

131 days since she was 'saved'.

131 days of a whole new layer in hell.

Her punishment wasn't enough for her sins, so the Lord and the Devil in their white coats saw fit to drop her down further. Further and further. The demons wore ties and carried briefcases. They wave both temptation and torturous pain. They bring forth news, of the world, of the others.

The demons do their dance as the saints above sit at their polished round table. They play with her fate like a game of poker, with paper files instead of cards.

Hell is not inflamed in red. It's not any color. But if it was Sophie bet it would be sterile white.

Sophie wipes the remaining blood still running down from her nose with the collar of her gown. Winces when it hurts, but she's sure she didn't break her own nose from just that.

It isn't healthy but a lot of things about her aren't, not just her body.

"Are you going to answer Sophie? Before I call for help cleaning all this up? You've been doing so well lately."

Red stains the walls. Red isn't sterile or numb. Red is pain and pain is as sobering as it is a high.

She's so sick of it all.

"No, you won't. You're not on schedule today."

"Let's get you cleaned up-" he tries approaching.

"You're not scheduled and that isn't on" she points up with a bloody finger, nails cut painfully short, and rubbed ever closer to raw flesh.

Points that to the tiny partial globe reflecting near all white, to the surveillance camera. It was just missing the even smaller pinpoint of flashing light, indicating the system was offline.

"I'm sick doc. This is a place for the sick to gather. I'm so fucking sick but look at you. Just look at you. You really do belong here."

Sophie turns, slowly sliding herself down, against the ruined wall. Drips like the blood marking in till she crumples on the cold floor. Makes herself...comfortable.

"I've been doing so well lately haven't I? When off my meds? I've been stashing them." she gestures to the pile, the mess, stained almost pale fluorescent when mixed with her blood.

She was a fun house doll, just too alive.

Pale with pops of blood in the right places, scars wrapped around in blooms. Stitches like a Frankenstein bride.

"Now Sophie, you know that you're supposed to-" he tries, stutters.

"It's because I'm real sick. That's how I know. I know how much I don't need them. And now, so do you." she leans, stretching.

Her expression almost bored as she leans her head against her knee, eyes upturned. What you made of them was up to you and your own conscious.

The middle aged man takes a step back, stumbling on himself, sweat already forming on his temple. Goosebumps raised.

This wasn't what he was expecting. This isn't how it ever goes.

"Aren't you tired doc? Aren't you just so sick of them? The nails scratching back, all the miserable crying, those other girls knocked dead asleep, your normal boring wife?"

She feels it as his gaze slips down, just like the collar of her sickbay gown. Across the textured scars wrapped around her neck, draping almost gently like a necklace. The sharp contrast of them against her petite frame and ivory pale softness.

She's been getting so pale again locked up in here.

"When was the last time someone wanted you? Wanted you to help them? Didn't fight back when they woke up."

Her head lightly knocks back against the wall, sticky red still dripping in the scratches, the lines. Gasps as she does so.

"I don't need any of this stuff. I've been awake. Been just as sick as you. Worse. So much...worse."

There's no need for the venom to hear a rapid heartbeat and blood rush, it's not hers.

"Help me."

The door closes, locked shut from the inside with the keycard. Sophie changes her groan into a fake ass moan as the flabby older body rushes at her. Squeaks and squeals like no other real crazy, not even this man's wife, would.

Just the way she knows men like.

The faceless old man pries between her tender legs and brushes of raised scars, worship them with his tongue like the sick fucks they all really were inside. Normal women wouldn't do it. Normal ones didn't press off all the wrong, so right, buttons inside.

There was something bewitching about a beautiful woman tormented. Beautiful with a collection of repulsive flaws. It should be disgusting, she should be disgusting. All the women locked up here should be as sterile and disgusting as possible.

Her small broken hands hold his worthless face up, caresses his pulse as she moans out yes yes and fucking yes. He feels just as insane as the patients here.

"When was the last time anyone ever said yes? I know doc, I know you." she croons.

Like a mother, like a lover. Pants it sweet into his ears. Dying the white room in a haze of something beyond colors.

Who was really the patient being treated here?

Soft legs, soft breast, warm breath, and imperfection for days.

So good and even better when they're willing. So much better alive. This one was so good, so pretty, warm and good.

She moans for real, giggles intoxicatingly sweet as he quickly loses all of himself in her embrace. Her short nails incapable of leaving any incriminating marks even as he loses all of his clothes. Leaving himself bare, vulnerable between tender spread legs.

"Yes~ Help me, please help me? I need- ah! Need it so bad. Ah~" she sings.

The tired true song of the virgin and the whore. One in the same. The impossible that men seek and twist into their every fantasy, even the sickos.

Men were the same anywhere.

Here. There. So easy and so fucking stupid. It was almost fun, lying was so fun. Using them up to nothing was so fun! This is why she needed to be off the drugs, to feel it all raw. What she needed to feel after so long, couldn't be without it after they got her hooked. They started it, made her body this way.

So good. It wasn't even about pleasure coursing, tingling with every beat of pumping blood. It was coming all too soon. It all felt so good and it was going to-

*Crack*

She snaps his neck.

How unsatisfying. Typical.

The relief of killing a man, easy as it was, too easy, was still a bit of relief for her. Scratched that itch after going cold turkey here. 131 days.

Sophie drops the twisted head and the body falls sideways with a thump.

Maybe she should have toyed with the old quack a bit longer? At least to stave off the boredom of waiting around till someone actually on schedule discovered her. It was already disappointing how she couldn't mess him up the same way he must have done to the ones before.

Well, she could, but that would mess up her alibi. Had to keep his blood sober, his body clean.

As Sophie sets up the scene, sets of the evidence of her 'tragic' assault and self-defense, she can't shake that feeling. That she's missing something important.

Something that actually matters.

It's not the ringing in her ear. In fact, she can't hear it. The constant ringing after a few good falls and beatings too many. It's odd. Peacefully unnerving.

"sop-"

These walls should be soundproof. Yet voices come through muffled. It sounds underwater through the concrete.

"sophie?"

The cracks and lines drip, flow. The liquid getting richer as it darkens. It's like someone turned on the damn tap behind the walls. They crack, keep cracking, lines elongating.

Cough syrupy blood pours out of every single one, flooding the floor. The levels rising unnaturally fast. It washes over her bare feet in waves and makes her laugh in warmth.

This isn't how it goes at all.

She laughs herself into hysterics because she remembers. She's done this all before and this isn't how it goes at all! How interesting. It would have been so much more interesting if the damn wall started bleeding anytime that long night. So much better than staring at her own insanity, or the lack of it, in the face.

Deeper. More. She wants the cracks to break and drown her in a flood. She wants it gone. The body on the floor. The marks left on walls, on skin and flesh. She wants the dead man, men, and their phantom touches gone.

She laughs, barreled over. Her naked body splashing and covered in the blood on the floor.

It's a nightmare. It's a grand time!

She crawls through the viscous blood, though it clings to her in clumps too thick to be just liquid. Clings of dead tissue and bits of broken flesh. Feels in all around her instead of just the constant ache inside.

"Sophie?"

Crawls to the dead man, head gone faceless in the drowning rising blood. Everything sounds underwater, under this.

She laughs as she clamors over him. Clawing and peeling with nothing but her bare hands and too-short nails. Rips and tears into the flesh, impossible as it was. The blood still rising dangerously.

When she makes a hole large enough she sticks her fingers in entirely.

Grip tight.

Pry the edges apart. Treat the flesh like a whore who doesn't want it. Leave marks for the next day.

She rips a literal gaping hole in the dead man's corpse, impossibly dark.

And crawls herself right inside.

"Sophie? Mattie?! Has anyone seen my switch? I swore I left it here?"

"How should we know? You leave your shit everywhere."

Sophie kept her eyes closed.

Slowly, sleepily, she stretched and fuck did that feel good. Her spine popped satisfyingly as she twisted, limbs dangling off the hammock. The cold stone wall where it was propped against felt like relief on this humid day.

She doesn't need to see to know she's not in that room. Doesn't need any damn sense to tell that much.

When her hands reached up she couldn't feel that thorny necklace of scars. No alluring contrast, just soft tender skin all around. The smoothness of youth and the lack of chronic pain in her admittedly comfortable current state.

She stretched again.

"What day is it?" she asks.

More to herself than anything. Still blinking to the surroundings of the sunlit cave. Not yet yellow with the setting sun. Just past the hottest time of the day.

A young girl as familiar as she was strange was looking around, rummaging in her messy designated corner of luggage and possessions as she answers automatically.

"Wednesday Humpday yo."

From a much neater area of the cave a boy not much older than her groans where he lounges against cool stone.

"Shut up June, god why are all you Gen Z kids so fucking weird."

"You're Gen Z bro!"

"No."

"Yes. Only jiejie counts as a Millenial, you can't lie to me about the internet. I was born there."

"And now it's gone. Gods I miss the internet. Sophie, if my offline phone and calender app is to be believed, today is....August 17th."

Sophie waved her hand in lazy acknowledgment as she sat up, stretching the ball joints of her limbs, her body.

A month and then some.

42 days.

Her memories aren't exact but it's been 42 days since she's woken up here. In this body, this life. 42 days since she's taken over the controls to this sick fantasy.

Had to keep track after all.

"Seriously, has anyone seen my switch?" the teenaged girl felt that she looked practically under every rock.

It was kind of hard to miss the brightly colored plastic anywhere, let alone the great outdoors. It should have been easy to spot even if it was lost.

"Might be in a tree," Sophie answered truthfully.

Her body's reaction was slow upon waking up. Something she would have never allowed a lifetime ago. There were enemies and danger everywhere, not just hidden.

Now the only hidden thing around was perhaps June's game and the thief who 'borrowed' it.

Call it overconfidence, or at least for now, pure indifference. There was no in-between of the paranoia and cold cut numb.

Not in the way your limbs numb and you feel static. That's the main difference, feeling. That was still feeling. Something Sophie was always going to have a problem with.

Some days she can't feel a thing.

It doesn't distract her, it doesn't bother her as much, it just is.

Some days she over worries past the point of insanity. Some days she can't hold it in to pass. Every little detail threatening to burst and overflow in her brain. Thoughts that won't end. Round and round they spin until she's exhausted herself dead back into nothing.

Right now was a time of nothing and she'll take the pretense of peace.

"A tree?" groans June.

"Maybe a cave." Sophie shrugs, still feeling lazy in this heavy heat.

"Most likely a drafty cave, it's humid as fuck outside." lounges Mattie, looking even lazier. Especially with his feet dipped in water, in the one large plastic bucket kept from the food provisions haul.

There was no work to be done during the hottest time of the day, let alone the year. One would only make themselves sick in this climate, unprepared and unprotected as they were. If you stupid enough to still be venturing outside in these conditions, then you deserve to drop dead in heatstroke and exhaustion.

"God damn it Kitty! Swiper no swiping!"

"...You know June, according to the pre-school children's show, you're supposed to say that before shit gets stolen."

"How am I supposed to know when he's here or not? It's like living with a ghost. A cat ghost! Do you know how many Oreos he stole at this point?! There are only so many goods left!"

"I still think that was you, no lie."

"Was not. Ugh, Sophie this is the worst kind of cat."

Sophie really did need to do something about the stray wandering in and out of their space. But today was not that day, she didn't care enough.

At least Leon wasn't stupid and dying out of her sight. She believed he was reasonably curled up somewhere shady, most likely the passageway. The child was probably stocked on sugar and water, using up June's game till the battery ran out. So what if he takes a bit more than the leftovers and provisions she leaves out, rather she expects it knowing the little thief.

Not bad. His skills weren't bad at all, kid or adult. She didn't even notice him today if he came in during their mid-afternoon nap to swipe something to beat this god damn heat.

She thinks she felt something during that time, during a nightmare turned memory. Or was it a memory turned nightmare? Did it matter? No, of course not. It was all the same thing.

She doesn't feel anything anymore. Not right now and it's for the best. Disassociation over panic. It's calmer that way, clearer.

It was just too damned hot to give a fuck about anything.

"He'll come out when it rains."

"Is that coming anytime soon?" complains Mattie, despite hogging the water bucket.

They're a hell lot more comfortable up here. On this picturesque mountain, deep enough within their own private cave. A godsend in terms of cool convenient shelter. Neither Mattie nor June wants to think about where they would be without Sophie to guide them. Maybe at another more productive time, they could afford to worry about those that must be choking down there. Sweltering in what felt like trapped air in tupperware.

But it's just too hot to care.

"Uh huh." is all Sophie bothers responding with, forcing down gulps of oddly tasteless water to stay hydrated.

The rain is the only thing that would break this hazy spell of weather. The break in pressure. The rain was the only thing left to wait for.

There was plenty more work to be done with never enough time.

Yet no one could work up any real will. Except maybe a teenaged girl towards the quest to find her games. If the outside humidity didn't immediately defeat and force her back in laziness that is.

"This shitty rain is not coming soon enough," complains Mattie again, each minute of discomfort feeling far too long.

"I feel like a well steamed bun. So steamed." cries back June, agreeing 100% while pressed on the floor.

"Are you both going to keep lying there complaining?"

"Yes!" "No!" "Maybe" "Both"

The mutterings of her siblings didn't stop and Sophie supposes that's it. It's time to be productive again, even if the weather sucked.

"Alright, you asked for it. Up and out, don't bother putting on any shoes. It's going to be muddy and messy."

"Why?" June asked, already perking up at the painful grimace Mattie was making.

"We need to make a temporary oven, more of a kiln if you want to be specific." Sophie stretched, finally sitting up.

"But whyyyy?" whined Mattie, the thought of moving let alone mess already making him a very unpleasant sort of person to be around. He finally sounded like a teenaged boy.

"You want to cut some of this humidity early?"

Now that really caught some attention, it was even worth opening their eyes.

"Uh hell yeah."

"Could have used that a few hours ago sis. "

Looking down at the lazy teenagers, Sophie gets the inkling why she's not as wired. As easy to panic after that, another nightmare, another memory.

There's none of the nagging, the feeling of forgetting something important. If it really mattered, she would know. It would haunt her and never let go.

But it's not here, not right now. This was enough. This peace she was working them so hard for. It was enough to just keep this....for now.

So much better than being locked up her own mind. Whether that was before or after her release. Another day, she'll tell the stories of that place. The places right after the island. But today is not that day.

"Get your asses moving them. We got wood already piled up, now we're making it charcoal."

"You want to make fire!?"

"Oh never mind then. I'm going back to sleep."

"You want to make it hotter?!!"

"We're going to need charcoal next season, the wood actually dries out the moisture and we all need that today" she reasons with them, only to be met with loud groans of protest.

Good, that meant they had plenty of strength still in them.

They really would be nowhere without her, Sophie chuckles to herself as she kicks them up. If they wouldn't let her sleep then she won't let them either. Besides, why dream when she finally has this?

Why indeed?

As she ushers them out to the messy patio space she takes a careful look over of what she already knows is not there.

Nothing. Not a thing. This wasn't one of those dreams and she brought nothing new over. Probably for the best given the subjects touched. From the drugs to the torn blood bag of a body. Not the best things to bring back into reality. Not again.

Not that she cares. Not right now at least.

But if she was going to dream a crazed dream, then let it be somewhere with something useful.

"Mattie! Look aha I was inside with you this whole time and this shitty candy wrapper so isn't mine. Aha! Wasn't me! You can't blame ....Oh shit my candy."

Maybe a grocery store?

Well then, that was a dream for another time. It's time to live in reality, even if it's all a lie.